An indigenous technological innovator, Adefolajuwon Amoo and founder of GridCode, has lauded efforts of the federal government in supporting indigenous innovations through the Executive Order No 5.
Amoo, disclosed this to journalists, while speaking on the, “Role of Government in Innovation,” at the 4th edition of Nigeria Innovation Summit 2019, event, held in Lagos recently, with the theme: “Accelerating Nigeria’s Economic Growth Through Innovation.”
He also commended the federal government’s anti-corruption campaign, while narrating his experience in the Ministry of Science and Technology, during the evaluation of his GridCode system to digitalise addresses under the Executive Order.
He also said his patented invention would help people navigate reliably in any location, support industrialisation, address security challenges, among others.
According to him, “It is very relevant today as a testimony to highlight that Presidential Executive Order No 5 was leveraged to get attention of the government, the response from the Presidency was swift response and directly led to progress towards evaluation for national adoption after I was invited to a make presentation at the Ministry of Science and Technology.
“The zero-corruption experience is highly praise-worthy and exemplary. With this experience, Nigeria is definitely on the right path to technological development by the federal governments demonstrated commitment to encouraging indigenous technology.
“Nations that protect and promote their own indigenous technology get rich by doing that, India and China are perfect examples with their own tech-giant platforms and my experience with government on my product has shown that this is possible in our country.”
Amoo added: “Government is serious about it and encourages all innovators to get abreast of executive order five and find out how it applies to their product and bring it to the attention of government, and I am sure they would get necessary support.”
In a keynote address, the Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, who was represented by the by Director, Research & Development, (NCC), Mr. Ephraim Nwokenneya, said, innovation remains the way forward.
“Accelerating Nigeria’s Economic Growth through Innovation is timely and could not have come at a better time like this when advancement in the Information and Communication technology (ICT) is, on a daily basis, throwing up innovative technologies that organisations and businesses must leverage in order to remain relevant and be competitive in their sphere of operations.
“In line with its commitment to promoting innovation to drive digital transformation, the Commission, in 2016, created its Research and Development (R&D) Department with the purpose of synchronising the various ongoing research activities.” he said.
Source: Thisday
